Born in in the town of Korkino, Chelyabinsk province, in the Urals. He studied at Chelyabinsk Music School (G. Gavrilov‘s class), and the Moscow Conservatoire (Pro­fessor Hugo Tits‘s class) where he was also a post-graduate (Professor Pyotr Skusnichenko‘s class).
He was a prizewinner at the Maria Callas Competition (Greece, 1989), and the Tchaikovsky Competition (Moscow, 1990).
In 1987, he joined Boris Pokrovsky‘s Moscow Chamber Music Theatre.

From 1990-1995, he was soloist with the Bolshoi Theatre, where he sung upwards of ten roles including such as
Silvio (Pagliacci)
Yeletsky (The Queen of Spades)
Georges Germont (La Traviata)
Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia)
Valentin (Faust)
Robert (Iolanta)

From 1993-1999, he appeared as guest artist with the Kemnits Opera Company. Since 1999 he has been a soloist with Dusseldorf Opera.
His international engagements include appearances in Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Essen, Cologne, Helsinki, Oslo, Amsterdam, Brussels, Liege, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Stras-bourg, Marseilles, Pans, Turin.
He has given concert appearances (over 100) in Japan.
He has over 50 Russian, German, French and Italian operas in his repertory.
He makes reg­ular concert appearances at Lucca Festival and has sung in La Traviata, La forza del destino, Tosca, Rigoletto, La Boheme, Tannhauser, lolanta and The Queen of Spades in Venice, Turin, Padua, Lucca and Rimini.
Over the past five years he has played an active part in the Ludwigsburg Festival pro­ductions under the direction of Wolfgang Gennenwein, where he has sung the lead baritone roles in Stiffelio, II trovatore, Nabucco, Ernam and Un hallo in maschcra.
Together with La Scala soloists, Anna-Caterina Antonacci, Luigi Roni, Claudio Dezderi and Alberto Rinaldi, he appeared in // barbiere di Siviglia in Germany, France, Italy Belgium and Holland.

In 2006, he has become guest soloist with the Bolshoi Theatre, where he participated in the production of Sergei’s Prokofiev’s War and Peace performing the role of Napoleon.